


People Are Strange

by redbranch



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Female Frank Iero, Idk what this story is going to be yet tbh, Other, We're all emo here, early 2000s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28333446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbranch/pseuds/redbranch
Summary: Sixteen year-old Frankie Iero is sent off to live in New Jersey for the summer while her flighty mom tries to get her life together. But there's something beyond the horrors of teenagerdom and East Coast malaise that plagues Frankie: the faces she sees that no one else can. The others. Can Frankie survive the things that haunt her, or will her nightmares finally win?
Kudos: 2





	People Are Strange

_“Take the highway to the end of the night, end of the night, end of the night...”_

“Take a journey to the bright midnight,” Frankie heard her mother’s voice join in, thin and wavering over the tinny cassette audio. Her fingers tapped the beat against the steering wheel as they rounded another cliffside corner a little too fast for Frankie’s liking. “End of the night, end of the niiight…”

“Please watch the road,” Frankie mumbled as she kept her gaze firmly on the passenger window, unable to tear her eyes away from the dizzying drops visible over the edge of the mountainsides. 

Mona chuckled, reaching over to pat her daughter comfortingly on her leg, which had the exact opposite effect on Frankie who snapped in a panic, “And keep both your hands on the wheel!” 

“Okay, okay!” Mona said around the cigarette between her teeth, returning her hand to the wheel with what Frankie considered way too relaxed a grip. “You know your mom’s made this drive quite a bit before, don’t you? I grew up around here.” 

Frankie sighed and decided it wasn’t worth it to respond to that. It had been hard to imagine her mom in her grandparents’ house, with all its fancy collected art, furniture you weren’t really supposed to sit on, and leather-bound books. Could Mona Iero really have come from there? The same Mona who thought bean bags were the ideal living room seating and constantly brought with her the scent of patchouli and nag champa? It was already such a contrast to see her mother, brightly colored from head to toe, sitting among all that muted, mature decor. Frankie had tried to picture her scaled down, her skin a little less sun kissed, her hair back to the vague mousy brown color Frankie suspected must be her natural tone. She’d stared hard at her grandfather, tried to match her nose to his, tried to find the lines of Mona’s mouth or the quirk of her eyebrows somewhere in those related faces. 

She tried to picture her mother driving down these mountain roads when she was a teenager. Now that she could do. She could see Mona going a little too fast, braking a little too late, enjoying the thrill of near death as gravity pulled her down to the wilds of the valley. It wasn’t that different than Mona now. 

Mona cranked the window down to ash her cigarette and turned the stereo volume up as Jim Morrisson crooned, _“Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to the endless night…”_

Mona sighed. “He’s a poet, you know,” she said, gripping the cigarette between her teeth again as she navigated through three narrow switchbacks. “Aunt Nat thinks so, too. She used to sneak into the Whisky. Says he gave her one of his beers once.” 

Frankie wasn’t paying much attention, closing her eyes now against the terror outside of her window, against having to engage with Mona, against having to be present in this nightmare of a situation. Again. 

“Aunt Nat’s pretty cool, you know,” her mother continued. “I mean, you know. You’ve met her before. I don’t think we’ve been to her new house yet, but… I mean, yeah. She’s crazy about you, of course. She was happy when I asked her if you could stay. And I think Jenn should be about your age now, right? I’m pretty sure. And there’s tons of stuff to do, especially for the summer. And it really should be just for the summer. I mean, September at the latest. Which is just in time for school anyw-”

A loud honk snapped Mona out of her babbling, the car jerking as she braked hard to avoid the Jeep that had rounded the tight corner. “Cocksucker,” she grumbled as she picked her way around the car, but the scare had lapsed her into silence, which Frankie was endlessly grateful for. 

There was no use poring over the details anymore. It’s not like Frankie had a say in it anyway. Their landlord had gotten tired of Mona’s constant empty promises, no longer appeased by the weed she gave him in lieu of rent. Mona’s parents had taken them for a while, but then Mona got a lead from a friend about a seasonal job in Seattle. Something something tourism, something something big tips, and so that was that. Mona would go to Washington to seek her fortune or whatever, and Frankie was to be pawned off on her aunt in New Jersey. _“Just for the summer,”_ her mom had said. _“Just until we get our ducks in a row.”_

At sixteen, Frankie was old enough to know that those two things were not the same. 

They’d stayed with plenty of people over the years. Friends, boyfriends, people who honestly Frankie wasn’t sure of how they got sucked into Mona’s orbit. In communes, in shared bedrooms of flats, in guest houses. But wherever they’d been, they’d always stuck together, until now. 

That and the fact that she was going to stay with her aunt on the opposite side of the country, who Frankie was sure she hadn’t seen since she was ten, was how she knew her mom had really fucked up this time. 

Whatever, it was fine. Frankie was used to it by now. She could handle herself. It might even be nice to not have to put up with Mona every day. 

But a part of Frankie that was much younger, much smaller, was stirring up her insides. Mona was never going to win a mother of the year award, that was for sure. And maybe there would be people who would agree that Frankie was better off elsewhere--a social services board, for instance. But still, Frankie couldn’t help that feeling gnawing at her guts, the feeling that she just wanted her fucking mommy. Because whatever Mona’s flaws were, one thing was true: when she was around, They left her alone. 

Frankie would endure anything for that. 

_“People are strange when you’re a stranger…”_

The track change pulled Mona’s eyes to the clock on the dashboard and she swore. “We’re going to miss your boarding time if we don’t pick up the pace,” she declared. 

_"Faces look ugly when you're alone..." ___

__Frankie’s knuckles turned white as she clung to the sides of her vinyl seat, and she and her mother sped down the mountain into the wide, yawning desert of Los Angeles._ _

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know where this story is going to go, but I was just really interested in this idea. Leave a comment if you're into it!


End file.
